Periodic Reporting for period 3 - EDI (European Data Incubator)
Berichtszeitraum: 2020-04-01 bis 2021-06-30
EDI is targeted to Big Data innovators and entrepreneurs in order to help and support them solving real industry challenges provided by various EU corporates and data providers across a wide range of sectors, or to develop independent data solutions utilizing the available datasets, in key industrial domains, e.g. a) Cross Sector; b) Agri-food; c) Energy & Environment; d) Finance; e) Gaming; f) Health; g) Industry 4.0; h) Internet & Media; i) Retail; j) Smart Cities; k) Sports and l) Transport & Logistics. EDI is devised to aid European startups in Big Data to overcome the usual barriers they face when innovating in this area, e.g. a) lack of access to private corporative datasets; b) access to the actual needs of the corporations having those datasets; c) access to VC and investors willing to bring forward their solutions or d) seed equity-free funding (up to 100K €) to help these innovative startups to materialize their innovative and marketable data-driven solutions.
EDI aims to leverage the technology and knowledge on Big Data across countries and sectors thanks to the incubation of SMEs and startups who use Big Data open source tools oriented to sort out major challenges in different business which facilitate their data assets. It boosts the European Data Economy by fostering a community bringing together stakeholders, such as data providers, innovators, tech/business experts, investors, universities, corporations, with an end goal of connecting the European startups and SMEs to a vibrant network, and positioning EDI as a network builder and confluence point to boost innovation in Big Data.
The main specific objectives of the EDI project are:
● Objective 1 - Experiment: to incubate around 30-40 startups per call on a funnel approach programme to develop a Minimum Viable Product based on existing data provided by consortium Big Data providers and using some of the most extended Big Data tools and a dedicated free infrastructure.
● Objective 2 - Business generation: to facilitate the business generation of the best companies per call focusing on the development of skills (such as: business planning and modelling, marketing & communication, technology, crowd and public funding, fundraising, human resources, product design/user interface, corporate and legalese or pitch).
Derived from those above some complimentary objectives are identified:
● Objective 3 - Open Calls: to launch three open calls to select over 100 top-leading Big Data startups/SMEs out of a pool of above 1,000 startups applying to the open calls.
● Objective 4 - Ecosystem and exploitation: to build a solid ecosystem around Big Data stakeholders with over 3,000 participants (including startups, SMEs, data providers, investors and Big Data experts) leveraging the results of sub-granted projects. At the same time, the consortium will launch new incubation programmes and continue with the services offered to the SMEs/startups on a commercial basis. We estimate an accumulated income of over €5.4M by 2024 only among the core-consortium partners.
● Objective 5 - Coordination: to adequately manage and coordinate the EDI project according to the rules of the H2020 and the coordination with other Big Data PPP initiatives. The consortium is comprised by 20 partners (including the data providers) and will disburse funds to over 100 SMEs/startups from all over Europe.
EDI aims to leverage the technology and knowledge on Big Data across countries and sectors thanks to the incubation of SMEs and startups who use Big Data open source tools oriented to sort out major challenges in different business which facilitate their data assets. It boosts the European Data Economy by fostering a community bringing together stakeholders, such as data providers, innovators, tech/business experts, investors, universities, corporations, with an end goal of connecting the European startups and SMEs to a vibrant network, and positioning EDI as a network builder and confluence point to boost innovation in Big Data.
The main specific objectives of the EDI project are:
● Objective 1 - Experiment: to incubate around 30-40 startups per call on a funnel approach programme to develop a Minimum Viable Product based on existing data provided by consortium Big Data providers and using some of the most extended Big Data tools and a dedicated free infrastructure.
● Objective 2 - Business generation: to facilitate the business generation of the best companies per call focusing on the development of skills (such as: business planning and modelling, marketing & communication, technology, crowd and public funding, fundraising, human resources, product design/user interface, corporate and legalese or pitch).
Derived from those above some complimentary objectives are identified:
● Objective 3 - Open Calls: to launch three open calls to select over 100 top-leading Big Data startups/SMEs out of a pool of above 1,000 startups applying to the open calls.
● Objective 4 - Ecosystem and exploitation: to build a solid ecosystem around Big Data stakeholders with over 3,000 participants (including startups, SMEs, data providers, investors and Big Data experts) leveraging the results of sub-granted projects. At the same time, the consortium will launch new incubation programmes and continue with the services offered to the SMEs/startups on a commercial basis. We estimate an accumulated income of over €5.4M by 2024 only among the core-consortium partners.
● Objective 5 - Coordination: to adequately manage and coordinate the EDI project according to the rules of the H2020 and the coordination with other Big Data PPP initiatives. The consortium is comprised by 20 partners (including the data providers) and will disburse funds to over 100 SMEs/startups from all over Europe.
The most significant results obtained by EDI after 3rd reporting period can be summarized as follows:
● Definition of a total 22 challenges from 18 Data Providers participated in 9 domains (Energy & Environment, Transport & Logistics, Sports, Gaming, Internet & Media, Finance, Retail, Agri-food and Health).
● Successful execution of the incubation funnel: Explore 36 startups, Experiment 18 startups, Evolve 9 startups
● Engagement of a total of 24 Data Providers and reinforcement of the relationships with the partner Data Providers by enhancing the number of Data Provider offering challenges, i.e. 18.
● Successful execution of training and evaluation events, all held remotely due to COVID-19
● Development of 18 MVP solutions in the EXPERIMENT stage, round 3
● Successful execution of remote training via webinars (17), mentoring (9 mentors) and coaching (11)
● Full distribution of funding to 36 startups, coordinated by successfully implemented milestone and KPI process, i.e. 1,755,000 € among the third parties have been released to promote Data Economy
● Implementation of communication activities, achieving already: 90,000+ visits to the website; 23,000+ visits to the project pages on F6S; 5,678 social media followers and members of the EDI community; 84 blog posts; 50+ press and articles online (including being hosted on more than 25 national and regional publications)
● Unlocked external investment by the supported startups of the Experiment phase, raising more than 4.3mil EUR among round 3 subgrantees, raising over 20.7M EUR among the 106 participating in the incubator.
● The project partners have utilized their EDI experience to successfully develop three European Commission funded Big-Data incubators (DAPSI, Data Market Services and REACH) that together have a 14.6M EUR funding available to the European Startups.
● Definition of a total 22 challenges from 18 Data Providers participated in 9 domains (Energy & Environment, Transport & Logistics, Sports, Gaming, Internet & Media, Finance, Retail, Agri-food and Health).
● Successful execution of the incubation funnel: Explore 36 startups, Experiment 18 startups, Evolve 9 startups
● Engagement of a total of 24 Data Providers and reinforcement of the relationships with the partner Data Providers by enhancing the number of Data Provider offering challenges, i.e. 18.
● Successful execution of training and evaluation events, all held remotely due to COVID-19
● Development of 18 MVP solutions in the EXPERIMENT stage, round 3
● Successful execution of remote training via webinars (17), mentoring (9 mentors) and coaching (11)
● Full distribution of funding to 36 startups, coordinated by successfully implemented milestone and KPI process, i.e. 1,755,000 € among the third parties have been released to promote Data Economy
● Implementation of communication activities, achieving already: 90,000+ visits to the website; 23,000+ visits to the project pages on F6S; 5,678 social media followers and members of the EDI community; 84 blog posts; 50+ press and articles online (including being hosted on more than 25 national and regional publications)
● Unlocked external investment by the supported startups of the Experiment phase, raising more than 4.3mil EUR among round 3 subgrantees, raising over 20.7M EUR among the 106 participating in the incubator.
● The project partners have utilized their EDI experience to successfully develop three European Commission funded Big-Data incubators (DAPSI, Data Market Services and REACH) that together have a 14.6M EUR funding available to the European Startups.
EDI has been promoting during the execution of the third iteration of the incubator the following new market opportunities:
● Promotion of new startups which explore, experiment and generate sustainable Big Data products addressing the foreseen (based on data provider driven challenges) or unforeseen (cross-sector challenges) by Corporates in Europe.
● Services offered in the technical and business coaching of companies is already being applied to other projects and customers of the 5 members assembling the core consortium (DEUSTO, ZABALA, ENG, ESH, F6S).
EDI as an incubator not taking equity from the startups is an effective way to generate high-skilled jobs and growth (In M42, more than 84.72% of the startups had increased their teams. In total, 26.5 new jobs were created by the startups in round 1, 37 additional positions in round 2 and 51.5 new positions by EXPERIMENT startups. This data was tracked by a feedback survey sent out to the top 16 startups (round 1) + 18 startups (round 2) + 18 startups (round 3). Making a total of 115 new jobs. Besides, EDI is facilitating access to new funding (both public and private) to our companies. According to the feedback surveys, over 50% of the Experiment startups gained additional public/private funding, from public as well as investment sources, in total adding up to 4.3M€ for round 3 subgrantees, making a total of 20.7M€ across the 106 companies that took part in the programme. Important to note is that several startups have reported that they have raised funding, however, they have not declared how much. Additional raised funds are expected from the top 18 teams from round 3 after the conclusion of the full incubation round.
EDI’s main innovations are its Funnel Incubation Process and the data-driven MVPs produced by 16 companies that took part in the 1st round of incubation and 18 companies in the 2nd and again 18 in 3rd round of incubation, within EXPERIMENT stage.
● Promotion of new startups which explore, experiment and generate sustainable Big Data products addressing the foreseen (based on data provider driven challenges) or unforeseen (cross-sector challenges) by Corporates in Europe.
● Services offered in the technical and business coaching of companies is already being applied to other projects and customers of the 5 members assembling the core consortium (DEUSTO, ZABALA, ENG, ESH, F6S).
EDI as an incubator not taking equity from the startups is an effective way to generate high-skilled jobs and growth (In M42, more than 84.72% of the startups had increased their teams. In total, 26.5 new jobs were created by the startups in round 1, 37 additional positions in round 2 and 51.5 new positions by EXPERIMENT startups. This data was tracked by a feedback survey sent out to the top 16 startups (round 1) + 18 startups (round 2) + 18 startups (round 3). Making a total of 115 new jobs. Besides, EDI is facilitating access to new funding (both public and private) to our companies. According to the feedback surveys, over 50% of the Experiment startups gained additional public/private funding, from public as well as investment sources, in total adding up to 4.3M€ for round 3 subgrantees, making a total of 20.7M€ across the 106 companies that took part in the programme. Important to note is that several startups have reported that they have raised funding, however, they have not declared how much. Additional raised funds are expected from the top 18 teams from round 3 after the conclusion of the full incubation round.
EDI’s main innovations are its Funnel Incubation Process and the data-driven MVPs produced by 16 companies that took part in the 1st round of incubation and 18 companies in the 2nd and again 18 in 3rd round of incubation, within EXPERIMENT stage.